"Injuries that result in chronic pain, such as limb injuries, and those unrelated to the brain are associated with epigenetic changes in the brain which persist months after the injury, according to researchers at McGill University. Epigenetics explores how the environment – including diet, exposure to contaminants and social conditions such as poverty – can have a long-term impact on the activity of our genes....
"The team report alterations in global DNA methylation are observed in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and amygdala of mice many months following injury to a nerve, and that environmental enrichment reduces both the pain and the pathological changes in PFC global methylation. They also found that the total amount of global methylation in the PFC significantly correlates with pain severity.
"These results suggest that epigenetic modulation mediates chronic pain-related alterations in the central nervous system (CNS), forming a "memory trace" for pain in the brain that can be targeted therapeutically, says Stone. Since epigenetics respond to environmental changes, these mechanisms represent a mind-body link between chronic pain and the brain at the genomic level. "The implications of this work are wide reaching and may alter the way we think about chronic pain diagnosis, research and treatment".
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-reveals-association-chronic-pain-broad.html
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